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Cheese Fondu

A creamy cheese fondue made with butter, breadcrumbs, milk, cheese, eggs, and seasonings, served hot over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Fondu

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a double boiler and add the bread crumbs.

  2. Pour in the milk and add the baking soda, stirring well.

Cook the fondue

  1. Cook for 10 minutes, then add the grated cheese, salt, and red pepper.

  2. Stir constantly for 3 minutes while cooking.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten eggs.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the fondue body and a soft, thickened texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that melts and carries the cheese into a smooth sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to supply the main flavor and creamy richness.
Beaten eggs
Set with gentle heat to add richness and further thicken the sauce.
Baking soda
Slightly raises the pH of the milk mixture, which helps the cheese melt more smoothly.

The step that matters

Mix in the beaten eggs off the heat. Eggs thicken by coagulating when heated, so if the mixture is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Removing it from heat first lets them blend smoothly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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